Digital Printing-Production Inkjet - Continuous Feed (Color)

The key message at the recent Inkjet Summit, seemed to be that inkjet technology is fully developed and ready to use, so start planning for it. "This market's moving faster than even I anticipated it would," remarked conference chair Charlie Corr, during the landmark event's wrap-up session.

A large demand for superwide printing led AMP Printing in Dublin, CA, to purchase a new EFI VUTEk HS100 Pro UV inkjet press at the ISA International Sign Expo in Las Vegas. The HS100 printer’s speed will be especially beneficial on some of the work AMP produces for national retailers—targeted signage requiring quick and accurate output.

The World Bank’s Printing & Multimedia Services operation has become one of the first in-plants to install a production inkjet press. Last month, the 42-employee in-plant fired up an HP T230 Color Inkjet Web Press in its Landover, Md., facility, 11 miles away from downtown Washington, D.C. With duplex printing speeds of 400 feet per minute, the inkjet press is a quantum leap over the speeds of the in-plant’s two Kodak NexPress 3000s and Océ ColorStream 10000. In fact, the first job run on the T230—800 copies of a 92-page book—would normally have taken up to eight hours to print.

What is striking about the round of installations this year over last, we are hearing about far fewer installation problems and challenges with substrates. We are hearing more about the costs and need to expand post-processing capabilities rather than installation or performance of the presses themselves. Business cases are still strong but, unlike the earliest adopters, those needs were not as acute, so they had the luxury of hanging back and biding their time until that time was right.

Any in-plant manager lucky enough to be in Chicago last month for Graph Expo got to witness some significant developments in the world of graphic arts. Dubbed “The Inkjet Graph Expo” by some, the show featured more inkjet technology than most in-plant managers had ever seen in one place.

One technology that may be finding a home on your shop floor is inkjet printing. If the hopes and dreams of equipment providers play out, full-color inkjet presses may soon coexist alongside offset and electrophotographic systems.